12th Doctor and Clara

Finally added the Capaldi Doctor and Clara to my Doctor Who collection. The Clara figure is a perfect likeness, and the Doctor is actually better in person than the photos suggest. He also has the red lining inside his coat.

This season he's been going a little more casual with a jacket over a hoodie and the sonic shades. If they do a second figure, I think I'd be likely to switch this one out.

Felicity Smoak

I'm sortof a sucker for the civilian attired supporting characters since they don't make that many of them. Too bad she's 7" instead of 6" scale, but otherwise, she's a very nice figure. Goes good with Arrow on the shelf.

Let's Go Surfing

Two X-men shows: Legion and Hellfire Club. The second especially could be interesting (although probably too racy for Network TV to do right). There's just too many superhero shows now though. They are watering down their audience pool.

The next wave that hits new forms of media, almost always, is the seduction of the direct marketer. That's because direct marketers always have plenty of money to invest in ads that pay for themselves. The thing is, though, that direct marketers don't care about the medium, they care about the response. As a result, there's a huge gulf, a tension between what the medium wants (a great podcast, a website with authority, a social network with character) and what the direct marketer wants (measurable click

Life is complicated enough, without making it difficult to enjoy simple things.

Apply the above recommendation to more than just hamburgers.

Random Hot Takes

Streaming

There's a lot going around about streaming right now. Some of it precipitated by the new App centric Apple TV model. Every company is going to have it's own streaming app/service now, or so they think/hope.

“It’s just not rational that all of us in the content business sold our content to a distributor and have allowed that distributor to gain so much share and offer it without our brands.” Discovery CEO David Zaslav

Nice enough quote, and you can even feel a little sympathetic to the channels that have this opinion. But are these channels "Brands"? Do you watch one Discovery channel show or one CBS show because you previously liked another on that network? Is a network a brand or a distributor? I'd argue that CBS, NBC, FOX, CW, etc. et al. None of these are brands, yes, they go through the branding motions and have the surface appearance of brands, but a consumer doesn't see them that way. The consumer just sees shows they like or don't like that happen to be on different networks. There is no affection for these networks, there is only affection for their shows.

People do not want to subscribe to a dozen tv distributors. At best people will subscribe to around 3 of them at $10 a month. Netflix, Hulu and HBO would probably be the leading 3 at the moment. The average person is unlikely to subscribe to many more than that unless they find a way to bundle themselves ala cable.

The networks do not seem to know if they are content creators or distributors? They think they are both, and in many ways they are still, but in the upcoming world, they are going to need to decide which side of the business, content creation or distribution is more important to them, because trying to split their attention and do both is not going to work out well for most of them.

In my opinion, most should focus on content creation and give up on distribution. Apple, Comcast, Netflix, these 3 companies will handle distribution and charging customers. The content creators, should look to make as few exclusive deals with as many of these sources as possible so that no single one becomes all powerful.

There's too much content already. People will look in a couple places for something in particular and if they don't find one show, they'll find something else that's easy to watch that doesn't require them to consider another purchase decision or subscription.

But the land of every "network" having their own app, is only going to work out for a small handful of "networks", the rest are going to need to get their content on as many platforms as possible if they want to get seen, and get paid.

Sat, 25 May 2013 07:57:39 -0700
I?m not a fan of the new Flickr redesign. It?s not even that I don?t like the visual look of it.My primary beef is: without warning they completely changed the service for paying customers. I?ve payed for a Pro account for years under the assumption that paying for a service would provide a little more reliability. Flickr has shown that not to be the case, so I?m planning to use it far less frequently and probably far differently than the personal photo site of record I have been using it as. (I?m also not pleased with their likely upcoming attention/advertising model)

I was able to put all my photos into one Set and download the full size images using a free service called flickandshare.com, so I have everything safely out of the service now. Likely I will eventually set up my own simple photo gallery (and give these photos a new home) on my website at chris-karath.com. Hosting your own services and codes seem to be the most reliable method for content that you want around for years to come.

Photos that are here now, will probably continue to be here, Yahoo willing, into the future.

Since Flickr has shown itself to be of unpredictable stability, and it appears to be transforming into more a social network than a photo service, I?ll probably plan on treating it as such. If you subscribe to my account for the action figures, I?ll probably from time to time still post a picture or two of those here with links back to my own site where I?ll likely start posting more photos.

If you follow for my personal photos, following me on Twitter or my personal blog atchris-karath.com will probably be your best bet. --- Best wishes, Chris.

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:49:02 -0700
I've never actually taken the full tour of the Museum. It was free today, so we went through it. It's nicely done for it's sort of thing.

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:49:02 -0700
Those light poles to the shore should be dry land

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:49:01 -0700
Stairways to nowhere. Grand Rapids.

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:49:00 -0700

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:48:59 -0700

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:48:58 -0700
Grand Rapids Art Museum. This display is by a new guy who just joined our team at work.

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 06:49:01 -0700

Sat, 30 Mar 2013 12:17:53 -0700
Both these guys have contributed a lot to comics. I'm not implying anything with the choice of pose. I figure in classic comic parlance though, these two comic heroes would be obligated to fight before teaming up to defeat some great evil.

Recent Blog Comments

Thread: p1825 Post by Jolloway2013-02-23 12:23:49 Hi Cris and other people who view this sight,
I just started a blog site jolloway.co.uk and I wonderd if anyone can give me any tips on blogging. I am curently using a site called word press to host me blog. I start around about a month ago and I\'m really struggling with it and if you do reply I\'m only 11 and found this sight by a photo in google Images.
-Josh
P.S. I love the background XP

Thread: p1706 Post by Chris2012-10-27 13:29:47 Fortunately, I resisted the DC/Master Bundles as they were pretty much only bundled with basic figures I already had. Had they been bundled with more unique DC figures, I might have alot more Masters figures at this point ;)

Thread: p1706 Post by De2012-10-27 13:06:27 I almost bit on Masters of the Universe when they were being bundled with DC Universe figures in the two-packs. I\'ve also liked the blending of sci-fi and fantasy but a lad only has so much room :-)

Thread: p1674 Post by T. Bass2012-10-24 20:55:50 Hi Chris:
Like you, I bought and just received an ONDA V701. Mine took 32 days (!) to arrive from China (bought from gadgetdealer.com... avoid like plague), and the box was beat to hell, but it seems to work fine ....with one exception.
That said, I like the tablet thus far, but a couple of things aren\'t flying right. One, it was advertised as having Adobe Flash ver. 11.1, but instead, mine came with 10.2. Yours? Not sure this matters, as Flash is going the way of the dodo-bird as far as Android goes.
My only real complaint thus far, and that despite trying everything I could find online, I cannot get NetFlix to work. This was/is one of the main reasons I bought it, as they advertised that it \"works with NetFlix\". I don\'t know whether it\'s the tablet, or the app that is the problem, but nonetheless, no love from NetFlix at this point.
I don\'t know if you are subscribed to Netflix, but if you are, I sure would like to know if it works for you on your V701, and if so, how did you get it going, and what settings are you\'re using to make it work? Appreciate hearing from you.
Best,
T. Bass
Applegate, Oregon

Thread: p1557 Post by davy2012-08-24 17:58:58 i kind of agree with you, and i\'m sure bale had the best intentions but the whole media circus at times is disturbing.
but if to had to pick on whether bale should have visited or not i\'d rather he visit for the sole reason that if he made any of the survivors feel good,even if it was only for the briefest moments, then it was worth it.
the victims medical and emotonals needs should be put first and if bale\'s visit helped any of them emotionally then i\'m glad